Many applications exist to generate digital artwork on different user devices. Generally, these applications allow a user to draw, sketch, and/or paint on a digital canvas with digital approximations of physical tools. For example, the user chooses a pencil tool and sees the digital approximation of graphite, or chooses a paintbrush tool and sees the digital equivalent of acrylic paint. Each of the art tools has distinct properties associated with it. The properties of an art tool include, for example, the size, opacity, color, and blend mode of a projected end of the art tool, such as a graphite tip of the pencil tool or a brush stroke of the brush tool.
Setting the values of the properties (e.g., the size of a brush to use) commonly takes the form of a slider mechanism. The user selects one property at a time and invokes the slider mechanism via a menu selection. The slider mechanism is presented in a window. The user drags a handle back and forth inside a track of the slider mechanism to change the value of the selected property (e.g., to increase or decrease the size).
The slider mechanism and, more generally, the existing artwork applications provide limited information to the user about what the application of the art tool on the digital canvas will look like until the actual application. For example, the slider mechanism displays a numerical value of the property in the window but does not preview what the projected end of the art tool at that property (e.g., the size of the brush) truly looks like on the digital canvas next to or over already created artwork. In addition, the window of the slider mechanism is typically dissociated from the digital canvas (e.g., the window is a popover window that obstructs the digital canvas or that is presented outside the boundaries of the digital canvas). Thus, to set the property to a desired value (e.g., one that matches or complements the already created artwork), the user has to go back and forth between the slider mechanism and the digital canvas in a trial and error approach.
This trial and error approach becomes even more problematic when multiple properties (e.g., the size and opacity of the brush) need to be adjusted. Because the slider mechanism allows a one-at-a-time selection of a property, the user can only adjust the multiple properties in a sequential order. Thus, the trial and error approach is repeated multiple times. For example, the user iteratively adjusts the size of the brush through back and forth adjustments between the slider mechanism and the digital canvas. Then, the user iteratively adjusts the opacity in a similar fashion. If for some reason, a conflict exists between the adjusted size and opacity, the entire adjustment process is repeated.